Pathetic, pompous and porous

Party owned newspapers in Africa have never been known for incisive reportage but that does not mean they should be pathetic Pravdas full of tosh.

For months now Scrutator has been bashing the editor of the The Silo, Theko Tlebere, a paper whose syntax one needs to “throw bones” to decipher.

She genuinely believed that beyond Tlebere there was no other.

He was the epitome of the very worst in our tiny media industry that is teeming with pretenders and rejects from other professions, so I thought.

How wrong Scrutator was.

Who would fault her for going gaga when the LCD’s newsletter, Mololi, landed on her desk?

Those who said one must not judge a book by its cover must have been inspired by such shocking things.

Scrutator is now convinced that for all the gibberish he writes in The Silo, Tlebere has a band of admirers who secretly envy him.

How else can the Mololi editor, Teboho ‘Neko, justify the mess that she is spattering in the ruling party’s propaganda mouthpiece.

The twelve-page rug reads well until you reach the comment page where ‘Neko displays her tomfoolery for all to see.

To get through the tosh in that single page you need to guzzle five tots of Vodka or drumfulls of Qhoma u cheche.

Or you must have smoked a very long “joint” of high grade marijuana from Mapoteng, Pulane or Mosalemane.

The choice is yours.

Or if you don’t depend on those things to get “Dutch courage” perhaps you can just pretend that you are high on something.

But even those intoxicating things and mental psyching might not be able to withstand the baloney in that party paper.

Because Scrutator is aware that there are some among us who are of a nervous disposition she will not dish out the rest of ‘Neko’s “amazing” works here.

Little tit bits are therefore enough for the purpose of this article.

Yet even then, Scrutator must warn you dear reader that you are reading these tit bits at your own risk.

Dynamite, as they say, comes in small packages.

So here we go….

On that page alone ‘Neko’s managed to intervene with nine semicolons (;).

“The war that is aimed at replacing the NEC from the Secretary General downwards in no way beneficial the owners of the fight either.”

Stay strong dear reader.

You will need the strength for the worst ‘Neki, aka Semicolon, is yet to be unleashed.

“They have failde to see where they are actually leading themselves into a dangerous and irrepairable situation.”

Don’t be shy to gulp another tot of Vodka or a mug of the home brew if you feel like that sentence reduced your much needed drunkenness.

“They just not the clever lot; they mislead themselves into thinking they will win through lies and by disregarding the Constitution”.

Do I hear you gasping for air my dear reader?

“The NEC resisted this plan and things did not really go as they had planned earlier; the became so bitter….”

Now check if your kids are indeed away before you read the next few lines for it is not right for an adult to sob near children no matter how hurt they are.

“These people; the people of the night meeting, when tey state their vote of no confidence in the leader, they are now stating the truth they have always known for over a period of six years.”

“In this state of affairs we continue to urge LCD members to be alert and take their time to look into issues carefully before thay act as this is the kind of danger aimed at toppling your party.”

“Just around the corner are the forthcoming elections.”

If you are feeling dizzy, dear reader, just blame it on the English who brought us their language but were kicked out before they could properly teach us how to speak and write it properly.

Now we are left with half-baked teachers who can’t even instruct in English and have not even properly mastered the subjects they are supposed to teach.

* * * * * * *

The embarrassment would not have been so monumental if the editor showed some humility.

But she is not that kind.

She runs something that looks like a newspaper but she gloats at press conferences about her efforts.

The voluble activist has become a self-appointed prefect for anyone who dares to write that the ruling party is in a crisis.

Yet every week the paper she edits is pooping doses of propaganda that would have made even Joseph Goebbels, Germany’s Propaganda Minister under the Nazis, green with envy.

To her everyone who wants the ruling party’s national committee disbanded is an enemy of the party and must therefore be blasted.

She clearly has not learnt that propaganda should be well packaged so it is sweeter.

Propaganda must be subtle and not so blatant as to put off the target.

To effectively sell propaganda one must have some grey matter between their ears.

Ms Semicolon clearly hasn’t mastered the art of propaganda.

Instead of using the paper to heal the party she has joined the warring camps and is now hurling mud at those she perceives to be enemies.

How shortsighted can an editor be?

* * * * * * *

Scrutator has for years struggled to find out what it is that holds us back from making progress and realising our immense potential.

But that age-old puzzle appears to be slowly unraveling in recent weeks.

She has since come to realise that we hate to tell each the truth and seek to hide in cultural epithets that say every man needs to be accorded some degree of honour and respect even when he is nothing but a village bumpkin.

We hate to tell each other the honest truth and are quick to cry foul when the truth is told.

At graveside we eulogies about how good the dead person was even if we all know that sometimes the world is better off without them.

Even thieves, morons, robbers and prostitutes are described like saints when they are dead.

When a man has been fired for incompetence we refuse to say he was fired.

“We simply parted ways,” as Moeketsi Pitso, the Lioli Football Club propaganda chief said this week when asked about the dismissal of Halemakale Mahlaha.

“Lets us not use the word fired but we have parted ways with both coaches.”

Such linguistic gymnastics should have no place in honorable discourse if we are to progress as a nation.

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